Encountering God in prayer.

Class Outline:

Sunday October 9, 2022

 

From “The God Who Hears,” by Bingham Hunter:

 

During the early 1970s I worked with World Wide Pictures as an evangelist. I would accompany the films and explain the gospel message to those in attendance … In our case the entire family was involved. After helping us set up and watching film showings for several months, Doug, who then was about five - once regaled us with the following mimicry of the essentials of my ministry: “All right, all you people. We’ve got a really good movie to show you tonight about Jesus. But first, we’re going to take the offering. Give me all of your loose money. Have I got it all? O.K. Show the film.”

 

Encountering God

 

We address a triune God. Our prayers are only heard through the distinct work of each Person in the Godhead.

 

The Trinity is not near as explicit in the Old Testament as it is in the New. One of the several plausible explanations for this is the rampant polytheism in the ancient false religions, of which Israel seemed always to be very attracted to.

 

In the New Testament we often take for granted an extraordinary truth that God is one and three in Person. Before any creature, God loved, shared joy and intellect within the members of the Trinity and now, through Christ, we have been invited into Their relationship.

 

The Father takes the role of Planner and establishing the decrees. The Son voluntarily takes His place as the one to take humanity upon Himself and become the Messiah, the Christ, of Israel and the world. The Holy Spirit voluntarily takes a role of glorifying the Son and the Father and revealing them, not Himself, to us. The three Persons within the unity of God’s being, who are equally divine, who know and love one another, and who for all of eternity have worked for our salvation and entrance into the sphere of their life, are our God and who seek for us to speak with them plainly.

 

The sphere of their life is a sphere of love.

 

JOH 17:20-26

"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

 

22 "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

 

25 "O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; 26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

 

I love how the eternity of the Father and Son are here, though Jesus was born a man. “You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” Eternal love of the Father and Son in the one Trinity and yet we, in time now, have been included into it.

 

ROM 5:5

the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

 

It is difficult to put into words the description of the mind and soul that lives in this world but really lives in Theirs. All believers know of this potential and I think a great many believers have experienced it in limited quantities. And I don’t mean the fleeting mountaintop experience - I mean living in this world but really living in God’s world, which is heaven. This is exactly what God wants for us and what He is consistently trying to show us and lead us to, and of which we are too often ignorant, and then even when we do come to know of it - resistant.

 

LUK 9:23-27

And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.  25 "For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?  26 "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  27 "But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."

 

Interestingly, the three (Peter, James, and John) would see the Lord transfigured to His resurrection state along with Moses and Elijah. The kingdom of God is redeemed and sanctified people.

 

Your cross - your crucifixion.

The old self has been crucified with Christ.

 

One of the important aspects of prayer is our frequent inner-self inventory of our denying ourselves and following Him. So much time can go by when we haven’t even thought of this because we are so easily occupied with the details of life. But if we gain the whole world even, and then lose our sight of eternal life, what will we be profited? Temporal things that have no lasting value or joy to them.

 

When we study the method of prayer, it is far more than knowing how to pray. It is also a constant reminder that we’re praying to the Father in the name of the Son and through the Holy Spirit, who by the way is tasked with making sense of our prayers for the Trinity. (We will always wonder at this, but remember, one member took on humanity, one member took on the role of glorification of the others, and one member took on the role of Father and planner and sender - who are we to dare say that this doesn’t make sense. Trinity doesn’t make sense to the rational mind either.)

 

Prayer is a constant reminder that we have entered into Their world - the world of love and joy that is the one triune God.

 

We know of no joy higher than being loved and being able to love in return and see it received with joy. The triune God knows love and joy in unimaginable and infinite dimensions. God is profoundly happy in an eternal and real relationship with Himself in the Trinity. Every believer in this age has been inducted into that alien and wonderfully astounding and surprising world.

 

And yet, we who have this, find ourselves bored, unhappy, depressed, complaining, and filled with gloomy outlook. These things lead us to look for substances that help us cope and we become addicts to drugs, alcohol, food, social media, gambling, sex, various forms of entertainment. In and of themselves, these things are not sinful in their right place, but when we use them in an attempt to give meaning to our lives, they become idols that slowly destroy us.

 

Prayer is one solution to this miry sinkhole that results from taking our eyes off of Christ.

 

It is true that prayer is not a problem-solving device, as in we make a mess and pray and God cleans it up. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t use it to help us solve our problems. God is a problem solver. He solved our greatest problem, sin, through Christ. With Christ, He will freely give us all things. It makes sense to speak to the One who has all the solutions.